• Best practices for the workup of common neurological complaints: Headache, Back Pain, Dizziness, Weakness, and Altered Mental Status
• Optimized approaches to the history and the physical exam
• An algorithmic approach to evaluating headaches (what causes you "cannot miss," what tests to do and when to image in order to find them)
• A practical algorithmic approach to back pain; how to spot the history and examination “red flags” for spinal cord and cauda equina compression. Learn when to image, and what to look for!
• Acute weakness—the evidence-based initial evaluation for uncommon but serious causes
• The modern evidence-based evaluation of dizziness (spoiler alert—physical exam beats imaging!)
• Video clips from actual patients that help you see, “firsthand,” hard-to-describe physical exam findings
• How to do a “meaningful neurologic exam” on a patient when numerous other patients are waiting to be seen: what to do and how to prioritize
• The best workup for subarachnoid hemorrhage: have "reports of the death of the lumbar puncture been greatly exaggerated"?
• The best inpatient workup for stroke, including how to treat it and what testing needs to be done urgently
• Best current evaluation of altered mental status and coma
• How to determine when a coma patient is not recoverable or brain dead
• Reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome (RCVS): more common than you think!
• Early actions for patients with severe TBI

• Optimize the physical exam:
  • How to quickly and accurately diagnose dizziness at the bedside
  • What is the significance of a Babinski sign in patients with back pain?
  • What findings in a headache patient suggest a specific diagnosis?
• Optimize how you order imaging:
  • When to use CT/CTA/CTP, including what to order and how to interpret results
  • When to use MRI, including what to order, when to order, and when NOT to order
  • How do I know which headache patients need neuroimaging, and which test should I order? Which blood tests can help and when to order them?
• How to tell if it is a stroke mimic, and if you're not sure, how to proceed with treatment
• Functional neurologic disorders—how to distinguish, how to manage, and how to most effectively communicate to patients
• Back pain: when to order imaging, what to order, and how to interpret results
• When and how to use point-of-care ultrasound to diagnose or treat neurologic complaints

• Updates for acute management of spinal cord and cauda equina compression
• Advances in the management of seizures
• State-of-the-art management of cerebral aneurysms and SAH
• Updates in ED and ICU management of TBI
• Management of head injuries
• How to approach pregnant and post-partum women with acute neurological symptoms
• Management of complex headache patients
• Management of coma and delirium
• Updates in anticoagulation reversal for ICH and TBI
• Endovascular stroke treatment: updates, criteria to determine which patients are candidates for it, when to call the interventionalist
• What to do with patients who might have had a TIA (and when to do it)
• Thrombolytics in stroke: updates and criteria to determine who should (and should not) receive this treatment
• What to do when you find a cerebral aneurysm: determining which patients get surgery and who needs follow-up
• Evidence of cauda equina or spinal cord injury: what to do; information needed by spine surgeons; when to call them and criteria to determine who needs surgery
• Updates for intracerebral hemorrhage patients and whether they need blood pressure treatment, anticoagulation reversal, or neurosurgery
• Acute seizures: treatment updates; how to tell if they are nonepileptic seizures; how to manage them in the inpatient (and outpatient) setting; how to choose among all the antiepileptic drugs
• Treating patients with a carotid or vertebral artery dissection
• Patients with minor head injury and concussion: what they need acutely, and what they need in follow-up
• How to use up-to-date evidence to quickly and accurately diagnose dizziness at the bedside
• What to do with patients if you think they have a functional neurologic disorder
• What to do when a patient’s underlying neurologic disorder seems to be getting acutely worse
• What to think about and what to do with patients with acute visual loss

• Modern stroke management: optimizing IV thrombolytics and endovascular therapy using advanced imaging rather than just the clock
• New criteria to identify stroke patients for endovascular therapy
• Updates in anticoagulation reversal for ICH and TBI
• Treating stroke up to 24 hours after onset
• Treating TIA and intracerebral hemorrhage
• Updates in ischemic stroke, arterial dissections, and reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome
• The right tests to order for potential stroke: when to order CTA, CTP, MRI, MRA, and what is the difference between them?
• Determining if it is a stroke or stroke mimic
• How to avoid missing posterior circulation strokes

• How to ensure the best care for elderly patients who have fallen
• Elderly patients with syncope, delirium, or altered mental status: special considerations for care
• Elderly patients with new headache: is it giant cell arteritis?
• How to determine which patients need further workup for a cause of a fall and which need testing for acute injuries
• Gait disturbance in the elderly

• Avoiding misdiagnosis
• Mitigating liability
• Medical errors: how to avoid them
• Guidance to address medical errors when they happen
• We all make mistakes—hear how the course directors process their own!

Every year there is a vast amount of practice-changing literature on diagnosis and treatment of patients with neurological emergencies. This program provides important updates including current approaches to the history, the physical, and early management. 

As a new or returning participant, you can rely on this program to ensure you are up to date with the latest information and prepared to:

• Better evaluate high-frequency neurological symptoms and high-risk neurological conditions
• Avoid misdiagnosis
• Quickly identify a neurological emergency and act in the first hours to optimize patient outcomes in the emergency, inpatient, and outpatient settings
• Optimize your use of diagnostics
• Incorporate updates in practice to ensure state-of-the-art management of high-risk neurological conditions

The faculty is assembled from the best clinician-educators at Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), and other leading medical centers. 

The program is designed to deliver the highest-quality educational experience:

• Teaching practical, effective clinical reasoning and approaches that enable you to deliver state-of-the-art care
• Presenting video clips from actual patients that help participants see, “firsthand,” hard-to-describe physical exam findings
• Allowing time for participants to interact with faculty and to pose and get answers to your specific questions
• Providing the latest information in an engaging manner and clinically usable context so that you have knowledge that you can “take home” and immediately apply to patient care

David Greer, MD
Chief, Department of Neurology, Boston Medical Center
Professor of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine

Full bio

Thanh Nguyen, MD
Director, Interventional Neuroradiology and Interventional Neurology, Boston Medical Center
Professor of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Radiology, Boston University School of Medicine

Full bio

Christopher S. Ogilvy, MD
Director, Endovascular and Operative Neurovascular Surgery, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Brain Aneurysm Institute
Professor of Neurosurgery, Harvard Medical School

Full bio

This program provides education for PHYSICIANs, NPs, and PAs in the fields of medicine listed below. You can tailor your learning experience to your needs, choosing among break-out sessions designed for your emergency department, outpatient, and inpatient settings:

• Emergency Medicine
• Neurology (Inpatient and Outpatient)
• Hospital Medicine
• Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
• Critical Care
• Internal Medicine
• Family Medicine
• Urgent Care

Dedicated Q&A time is built into each live streaming session. You can pose your specific questions to clinical leaders in emergency medicine, neurology, neuro-intensive care, stroke neurology, neurosurgery, and neuroradiology.